The Healer and Her God

Chapter 12

Kaelen

The night was long, though gods rarely measured time the way mortals did. Yet every moment I remained awake, I felt it stretch.

Her steps had echoed outside my chamber, soft but unmistakable. Eria. I had heard her hesitate, heard her breath tremble just beyond the door, and I had spoken her name before I could stop myself.

By the time I rose and pulled the door open, she was gone, swallowed by the corridors. But her presence lingered. Her scent, her heat, the tug of her pulse—threads of her that sang against mine.

Enough restraint.

The temple bent to my will as I moved, shadows stretching, the air warping faintly with my power. It didn’t take long to find her. She was leaning against the archway to the courtyard, eyes lifted to the stars as if begging them for calm. Her lips moved in a silent prayer.

“Little healer,” I murmured.

She spun, startled, her braid brushing her shoulder. “Kaelen.” My name was a gasp, fragile, guilty.

I took one step, then another, until she was cornered by the stone arch at her back. I braced a hand above her head, close enough that she felt the heat rolling from me. “You came to my door tonight.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came.

“You think I wouldn’t sense you?” I continued, voice low, velvet over iron. “Every time you breathe near me, I know. Every time you ache, I feel it. And when you ran…” My knuckles grazed her jaw, tipping her face up to mine. “…I almost tore this temple apart.”

Her breath shuddered against my throat. “I shouldn’t—”

I silenced her with a kiss. Not gentle, not restrained, but hungry, claiming. Her gasp broke against my mouth before it melted into a desperate sound, her hands fisting in the fabric of my robe as though she’d been waiting centuries for this moment.

Her ears twitched, tails flaring behind her as if even her body betrayed her desire. I caught one tail in my hand, stroking the silken fur. She whimpered, arching into me.

“You burn,” I whispered against her lips, pressing her back into the stone. “Do you know what you’ve done to me? How many nights I’ve wanted to take you like this?”

Her answer was only another kiss, hotter, deeper. She tasted of defiance and surrender all at once. My palm spread over her hip, thumb brushing the curve beneath her robe, and she gasped again, breaking the kiss to murmur, “Kaelen…”

The sound of my name on her lips undid me. I crushed her closer, her body molded to mine, the world narrowing to nothing but the fire we set between us. The temple, the stars, the gods themselves—none of it mattered. Only her. Only this.

I lifted her easily, her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist, her lips finding mine again in fevered devotion. The archway at her back shuddered faintly from the force of my restraint fraying, stone threatening to crack beneath my power.

“I will not be gentle,” I warned, voice ragged as I broke for air.

“I don’t want gentle,” she breathed.

And with that, the last thread of control snapped.